Finally Alive
by TF2Teen
Summary: She had no memory. She had no identity. She had nothing, save the brain in her head and the breath in her lungs. And that's all she needed.


It may have been a slight possibility, just the ever so minuscule fraction of a sliver of a speck of a chance, that she had brain damage.

You know, just maybe. Perhaps after waking up after heaven knows how long in a strange, unrecognizable room, one that smelled terribly foul and dank like moldy sweat (or was it sweaty mold?), with absolutely no memory of her name, the thought wasn't out of the question. Whatever had happened to her before she got here, wherever 'here' was, definitely left her with negative effects. Like wonderful brain damage! And yes, reader, that was sarcasm. Just in case it went over your head.

Ugh, how long had she been here, lying in what she could only assume was a dirty, uncomfortable bed? Her back, no, her whole _body _burned from inactivity. Honestly she felt like a soggy, rotten vegetable that was left lying on a wet piece of wood in the shade. She was surprised she wasn't just a pile of icky green goop by now, assuming she was asleep for quite some time. And considering just how much her bones and muscles simply felt like numb sacks of pudding with needles stabbing through them, it was probably quite a while.

At first, attempting to use her arms to push herself up from her post-vegetative position was a challenge. Mainly because, well, it hurt. And that was an understatement. Because when I say it hurt, I mean the most uncomfortable, unimaginable seering agony any waking _person_ could ever feel. I am talking about the white hot agony of a thousand and one knives drilling _into your spine._ So yeah, she screamed.

Though it wasn't like she could help it. It really did feel awful, but thankfully it wasn't from any injuries. Not any serious ones, anyway. It was not unlike the uncomfortable prickling sensation that resulted from trying to move a leg that had fallen asleep, magnified by a hundred or so. Her entire body stiffened and her arms gave out from underneath her, letting her fall back onto the flat pillow with a fwump.

Gasping in a shallow breath, she slowly let the racking pain subside from her body. Taking a deeper and more determined breath, she decided that if she ever wanted be more than a deteriorating potato, she had to try again. Maybe trying more slowly would be better for _comfortably _easing her muscles awake.

Willing her arms and legs to obey her thoughts, she slowly let her knees rise from underneath the sheets as her arms slowly shifted. This time, as she carefully focused her efforts towards rising from the bed, her struggles were relatively sucessful and less pain-riddled. Not to say there wasn't any discomfort, because she was definitely not appreciating the creeping pain and exhaustion slowly worming into her limbs. But it was nothing unbearable, really. This time she could push through this with determination. She was going to suck it up, push herself up, roll a tad to the side, and, both majestically and gracefully, fall face first off the bed and smack dab onto the floor with a soft thunk.

In retrospect, perhaps she should've felt around for the edge of the bed before trying anything, considering the fact that the room she was in, having a distinct lack of windows and barely any other sources of illumination (aside from a few thin sprinkles of light seeping in through a small number of spindly cracks in the walls) was shrouded in darkness to a point where actually seeing _anything_ was nigh-impossible.

"Rrrngh..." From her face-down position on the cold, hard floor, she stilled in surprise at the foreign noise. The frustrated grunt that escaped her throat, indicating that she indeed possessed functioning vocal chords, was not a sound she remembered uttering. Come to think of it, she couldn't even recollect ever speaking before.

Strange.

Okay, exactly how much of her brain got damaged? This was not the coolest thing at the moment. How many vital, important memories had been lost? Did she have a home, a family, an identity? Were loved ones currently missing her at the moment? Her mind was but a blur, blank, and completely black on the subject. Exactly who was she?

Right now, it didn't matter. Now was not the time to start having a panic attack on the floor in the dark like a loser. Now was the time for action! Now was the time for-GAaAH!

_"Welcome,"_ Out of nowhere a scratchy, faint, mechanical voice emitted out, as if it had been turned on by her glorious fall. Perhaps the floor was pressure sensitive._ "to the Aperrrrr...sci...type type type...ault."_

The glitchy recording made her raise an eyebrow. She listened carefully, as the voice faded in and out with each word. _"...anduh-duh-duh...zzzz...h-hum...lic...tiv...aaaaaaaaated..."_

Another long, staticky pause, before the voice continued. _"Plea...ex...ex...door to...commennnce...arrrrrrrrrr...tes...tes...tesssss..."_

She was welcomed again with near-complete darkness and utter silence as the mysterious voice cut off with a staticky whurr, having given her absolutely nothing comprehensible or useful whatsoever. Well, with the exception being where she was. Someplace called Aperscitype. Not like that piece of information helped, assuming she had heard correctly.

Hearing a soft click from her right, she turned her head as a rectangle outline of light pierced through the pitch-black dark of the room. An obnoxious creak sounded as what was actually a door broke off the rusty hinges, slowly toppling towards her. Instinctively she got to her feet, jumping to the side and colliding against the opposite wall to avoid being crushed. The old, and apparently very heavy, piece of wood slammed against the floor. The sound reverberated throughout the room now flooded with light.

The instant brightness immediately made her bring an arm up to shield her eyes from the almost blinding lights, but then shortly after brought it down to cover her mouth as she was forced to inhale the thick cloud of dust kicked up by the fallen door. Her shoulders caved in as her lungs heaved, trying to find oxygen through the thick pollution.

Staggering to her feet, which she noticed had neither shoes nor socks to protect them from the harsh cold ground, she hurried toward the exposed exit, her ticket out of here. She wanted nothing more than to get out of here! Joy filled her as she jogged to the rectangle passageway to...

Her impending doom, had she not grabbed the side of the doorframe. Otherwise she would have found herself plummeting down a deep, dark pit laced with debris, old support beams, and cobwebs galore!

Her frightened hands gripped to the edge of the doorframe, looking down with wide frightened eyes as she saw exactly where she was. Her room was _dangling_! It was swaying slowly, ever so slightly, from side to side on an old rusty rail! Not to mention, it seemed as though other large room-like cubes neighbored her. They were more still, due to inactivity and unuse. One difference though, she noticed, was that these rooms didn't have doors like hers. Instead, these rooms seemed to adorn large vault locks, ones that looked very intricate and complicated indeed. Perhaps to keep something out, or keep something in.

What did that matter anyway, she was going to die! Either this room was going to break off the rail, sending her falling down this bottomless pit, or she'd be forced to starve in this room and suffer a much slower demise. Oh this was bad, this was very very bad! Her fingers gripped the frame, eyes fixated on the blackness looming below her. It looked as if it would swallow her up at any minute, and was it just her or was the darkness growing? Yeah, she was _very _high up!

She staggered back into the room, shaking her head from side to side to push away the acrophobic feeling that had begun to creep into her body. How the heck was she supposed to get down from her precarious placement? Given the fact that, most likely, throwing herself down a bottomless pit would most likely kill her (Not to mention turn her into instant mashed potato splat on the floor, assuming the pit wasn't truly bottomless), that was out of the question. She may not have had a clue of who exactly she was, but she certainly wasn't suicidal. Hopefully there was an easier, and much safer, way out.

The lights outside flickered once, and with a hum they instantly brightened. She took a breath, shuffling over to the doorframe once more and peeking out once more, continuously reminding herself not to look down. Though the improved lighting did help her see, there still wasn't much more to see other than the old worn details on her surroundings.

The crackle of an intercom overhead caused her to whip her head up, though she gripped harder at the doorframe to keep herself from accidentally falling off. The loud thumping of a finger on a microphone echoed from the ceiling.

"Hello, hello?" More thumping. "This thing on?"

"Hello!" She instantly answered the masculine voice, shouting as loud as she possibly could. Thank goodness, she wasn't alone in this old junkyard!

"Welcome to Aperture Science Innovators!" Oh...so Aper_ture _was the name of this place. No matter, she'd be leaving soon, once these people helped her get out.

"This is a prerecorded message." Never mind... "If you are hearing this, then that means you've come across our top secret storage vaults. If you're not one of the Lab Boys, but rather from Black Mesa, or an Alien or whatever, get out! You don't need to know what's in here and I don't want you patent-stealing scumbags around here either! Anyway, if you're supposed to be in here, you should know what's stored where. Now I know at a first glance it doesn't seem like much, but I tell ya this vault is full of surprises! Some old equipment, decommissioned projects...pretty sure we chucked a few guys in here by accident as well, but no matter! I say as long as it isn't broken, it can be used for science, so let's get testing! Also please try not to break anything. This stuff was expensive."

"Not much I can break, really..." Despite knowing her mumbling would go unacknowledged, she she stared upward with a scowl, "Cuz, you know, I'm stuck in a box!"

"To begin testing, please follow the yellow line."

"What yellow line? I am stuck in a...oh you better not mean that yellow line!"

Yes, that yellow line. The very lovely yellow line that happened to be conveniently and directly in her line of sight. Now if only it weren't on the _other_ side of the bottomless trench of doom, that'd be perfectly fine.

It was painted on an old, rusty flight of metal stairs bolted sideways next to the many, many other large vaults that dangled on their fragile rails. These set of corroded stairs had broken off just about at the level she was at from obvious wear, the remaining section plunging down, down, down into the gaping mouth below. From the look of things, it would seem that the piece of junk you'd normally call stairs would most likely disintegrate the minute a speck of dust disturbed it's precarious hold on the wall.

Okay, this was bad. She was stuck, there was no doubt about that, and the only way out was to go over a deep, probably lethal pit. One too large for her to be able to jump, of that she was certain; she probably wouldn't have been able to jump across it even if her body had been in peak condition, rather than in the still-sore state it was in right now.

...So now what?

Okay, she had to approach this rationally. Her target was to get over the chasm, but she wouldn't be able to succeed by the power of her own body alone. Which meant that she'd have to use other objects.

Now, what did she have at her disposal?

Well, there was the door, and she knew for a fact there was a bed in the room she just came from, but as she never really took a good look at the room in question; there was no telling what else might be in there.

Guess she was about to find out, then.

Turning around, she made her way back into the room, which fortunately had breathable air again as the dust had cleared. Between the bland, lightly orange-toned walls, she could see a small collection of furniture - opposite to the bed, there was a small wooden cupboard, upon which a broken lamp could be seen. On a small wooden table stood a white plastic bowl, within which there was something brown and indistinguishable which probably used to be fruit or vegetables, and it was letting out a weak, rather unappetizing odor. On the wall next to the door, there was a closet; wooden doors closed, contents unknown. A lamp hanged from the ceiling, made majorly of a dully orange material which looked like plastic, though the casing was missing a few pieces here and there, revealing the shattered light bulb within. Other than those few objects, the room was empty; the only place left for her to check now was the closet's interior.

Treading across the cold floor, she swiftly let her feet carry her towards the double-doors of the closet, and as her hands came into range of the doors' handles, they grasped around them and pulled the doors open.

She suddenly found herself face-to-face with another person.

Her initial instinct was to grab the nearest blunt object (the broken lamp), holding it out in a defensive stance toward the other woman, who surprisingly mimicked her movements. She observed this other woman, whose pale skin seemed ghostly under the dim lighting that filled the room. Her hair was a short, raven mess that went no further down than the lobes of her ears in what was commonly known as a pixie haircut, framing her face that adorned a set of blue eyes, a small button nose, and pale but pink lips that were pressed in a firm line. This woman's slim, wiry figure was complimented only by the faded blue jumpsuit she wore, which seemed dirty and old with only a faded, large letter "D" stamped on the left pocket. Like herself, this woman wore no shoes, her feet covered in dust and sticky filth. Man, was this lady ugly!

Wait...

She took a step back, eyes widening as the mysterious closet-lady did the same. Closet-lady's expression mirrored her own as she slowly held her right arm out, experimentally moving it up and down. Again their movements were syncronised, and she came to a shocking realization. What she was staring into was a mirror. This was HER!

...Who, exactly, puts a mirror -nothing else, just a lone mirror- in a closet? There were no clothes or any other things which, by all rights, one would find in a closet, but rather someone had thought it a good idea to install a mirror there, when it could've just as well been put straight on the wall. Wierd.

Regardless, there was no point for her to ponder the _why;_ doing such would do her no good. Right now, she had to get out, and she was starting to get an idea on how to do it. She'd build a bridge - the door would work, and then she could take the bed as a counter-weight, which would hopefully leave her with an extension sturdy enough for her to walk on. It probably wouldn't get her all the way across, but it was a start.

Her first step would be to drag the door into a position where it could be pushed out, once she had the counter-weight ready to help keep it from falling. Actually doing this showed to be easier said than done, though. The door weighed a lot, and she wasn't exactly the most muscular person, as evident from her own strength as well as her look in the mirror. By the time that she had gotten the door into the position she wanted to put it in, she felt litterally exhausted, to the point where she just wanted to lie down and sleep. If it hadn't been for the fact that the air around her was rather chilly, she probably would've been drenched in sweat.

After allowing herself a minute or two of resting, she proceeded with the next part of her plan, and it was only after half a minute of persistent tugging on the bed that she realised that no, she could not use it because, for some reason, it was _bolted_ to the floor. Thus, her plan fell flat on the ground - she'd need to find another solution.

Refusing to be deterred by the setback, she began to collect the various loose objects spread around the room, with the exception of the suspicious, foul-smelling bowl, with the intention of using them as replacements for the bed she'd found unavailable for use. Fortunately, these objects showed to be far easier to move than the door had been, and soon she'd found herself with a neat pile of stuff on top of the closer part of the door. Snagging the covers from the bed as a final component in her counterweight-pile, she began to push the door out over the abyss, tiring her out even faster now that the pile's weight made the job even more tiring. What was the door made of, _concrete_?

Fortunately, the door didn't need to be moved very far this time, as it was already practically in position after her previous pushing-round. As such, she wasn't as tired-out as last time once she'd gotten it into position, but she still allowed herself a minute of resting before she tried to use her probably quite unsafe construction.

The minute subsided, and she found herself getting ready to use her contraption, knowing that there was not really much she could do to improve it. Carefully, she set her feet down on the door-bridge, moving out onto it step by step. She got most of the way out on it, and things seemed to be going fine; her contraption was working. Well, right up until she heard a loud

**CRACK!**

Hearing it, she threw her gaze backwards as fast as she could, spotting a rapidly widening crack spreading through the middle of the door, right behind her. With no time to think, she did the first thing her mind came up with: she jumped, and as the force of the jump caused the door to finally snap in half (sending the outer half plummeting down into the seemingly bottomless abyss below her), the only thing on her mind was pure terror and fear; her life was on the line.

Then, the moment was over, and her chest careened straight into the solid metal that was her target. Her hands frantically grasped at anything they could reach, failing to catch a hold. She started to slip down, but at the last moment, her right hand managed to grasp around what was unquestionably an iron bar of some sort. Had she not been busy trying to frantically save her life, she would've noticed that it was part of a handrail - one of the bars responsible for keeping the rail up. Right now that was the last thing on her mind, though, as she struggled with all her might to keep herself from falling.

Using strength she didn't know she had, she managed to pull herself up far enough for her other hand to get a grasp, and from there, she eventually managed to pull one of her knees up onto the platform, allowing her to use her leg strength to help her climb. The rest of her leg came up, her other soon followed, and she collapsed on the cold iron platform. She was _alive_.

Exhausted, but alive.


End file.
